I. Introduction
The third truly revolutionary movement is Mexican history broke out in 1910. In its initial stages the revolution was overwhelmingly agrarian in character. The peasants who made the revolution wanted land, water, and schools. With the political destruction of Diaz, however, the way was opened for far-reaching social and economic reforms. Once under way, the revolution strove to complete the work of independence by strengthening the state and weakening the rival forces in the society—the Church, the large landowner the foreign capitalist, and the army. It sought to bring the Indian out of oblivion into participation in national life. It intended to destroy the regime of Diaz by wiping out its institutions and by eradicating its concepts. It aimed to make Mexico economically independent and to restore its diplomatic independence.
Thesis Statement: This paper scrutinizes the events happened during the Mexican revolution.
II. Discussion
A. Modern Mexico, Outbreak of the Revolution.
Francisco Madero pointed out his reasons for beginning the armed movement against the Diaz regime in his Plan of San Luis Potosi (dated Oct. 5, 1910): an intolerable tyranny in exchange for a shameful peace imposed by force, which had favored only a few; a complete contempt of the country’s constitution; a mercenary justice; a congress at the dictator’s orders; everything arranged so that Diaz could maintain himself for power. This political retrogression had produced a deep ill feeling in the country, intensified in 1910 with the naming of Ramon Corral to the vice presidency. On the social side, there was the problem of the land and the peons (Williams, 48-52).
Madero’s party adopted the slogan, “Sufragio Efectivo, No Reeleccion” (Effective Suffrage, No Re-election). Their leader declared that he had entered the political struggle honestly and would have been elected president but for electoral frauds. In so doing he put himself at the head of all the Mexicans who wanted to protest with guns in their hands against the illegality of the elections and the violation of the national will.
The revolution thus began spread rapidly. In Santa Clara, Puebla, Aquiles Serdan proclaimed the revolt in November 1910, but was killed almost immediately. At about the same time, Pascual Orozco proclaimed it in Ciudad Geurrero, Chihuahua. The revolt in the north was joined by Francisco Villa. In March 1911, Emiliano Zapata rose in rebellion in Morelos, demanding land and better living conditions for the peons (Graybill, 101-110).
The Federal Army, commanded by Diaz’ generals, could not contain the uprisings. On May 21, 1911 an armistice was signed between the Federal forces and the revolutionaries. Diaz sent a delegate to sign an agreement with the rebels, then renounced the presidency, May 25.The secretary of foreign affairs, Francisco Leon de la Barra, was named provisional president. In special elections, in October 1911, Francisco Madero was elected president and was sworn into office on November 6.
Madero had been elected with the strictest legality—but there were other questions besides that of democratic suffrage. The new president came to terms with the moneyed classes and other influential groups of the Porfirian regime, and thus the social, economic, and religious questions were left unsolved, and the revolutionary groups remained in arms.
The Zapata revolutionaries in Morelos, dissatisfied because Madero had not carried further the revolution begun with such success, protested energetically in the Plan of Ayala of November 25, 1911. Their slogan was “Tierra y Libertad” (Land and Liberty), and it proposed the complete destruction of the Porfirian system and an agrarian reform. Pascual Orozco rebelled against Madero in March 1912, but was driven out of Mexico by General Victoriano Huerta (Sherman, 56-61). Bernardo Reyes attempted to revolt in Nuevo Leon, and Felix Diaz, a nephew of the former dictator, rose in Veracruz, but these also were put down.
The delicate international situation was another of Madero’s problems. The United States remained vigilant, watching events, especially along the border, but its ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson, favored active military intervention against Madero’s government. In April 1912, Wilson entered a claim for damages for injury to lives and properties of American citizens resulting from the revolutionary fighting, and he did everything in his power to cause the intervention of his country in the internal affairs of Mexico.
On February 9, 1913, Felix Diaz and General Reyes, who had been imprisoned in the capital, were freed by troops who had rebelled against Madero. Reyes was killed, but Diaz and the rebels took refuge in the Ciudadela (Citadel). There followed ten days of uncertainty, intrigue, and fighting in the city, known as the “Tragic Ten Days” (Kuecker, 46-51). Madero’s commander, Huerta, taking advantage of the bloody fighting, arrested the president and Vice President Jose Maria Pino Suarez on February 22 had them shot while they were being transported from the National Palace to the penitentiary. The usurper Victoriano Huerta, supported by Ambassador Wilson and the reactionary Porfirian group, then took over the presidency. His government was recognized by Great Britain and several other countries, but not by the United States (Rienner, 34-42).
Carranza. Huerta’s treason angered the governor of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza, who was to be the organizer of the revolution, as well as Zapata, Villa, and other revolutionaries. Supported by numerous military leaders, Carranza launched the Plan of Guadalupe of March 26, 1913, disowning the government of Huerta.
On April 9, 1914, some United States sailors landed in Tampico in seaman’s provisions. They were arrested by Mexican soldiers and later released upon proving their nationality. This incident provoked an exchange of notes between Mexico and the United States. Huerta adopted a provocative attitude, the result of which was that the new government of the United States broke off relations with his government and in February lifted the arms embargo to authorize the sending of munitions to the usurper’s enemies (Lamadrid, 64-69). Later, it ordered United States marines to land in Veracruz (April 21, 1914). This intervention and invasion caused an energetic patriotic reaction in Mexico.
Meanwhile other revolutionary groups had joined Carranza, declaring him chief of the Constitutionalist Army. In March 1914, they attacked the city of Torreon, and their capture of Zacatecas in June was the decisive blow against Huerta’s forces. From there, Gen. Alvaro Obregon of the Constitutionalist Army advanced to Teoloyucan, near Mexico City, where the rest of the Federal Army surrendered. Huerta abandoned the capital on July 15, 1914, and went into exile. When Carranza entered Mexico City in August, he had to face the difficulties with the United States. Since these had concerned the usurping government, he demanded that the United States forces leave Veracruz, and the port was evacuated in November 1914.
Villa, who enjoyed great popularity in the north, and Zapata, who was fighting for his ideals in the south, had been unwilling to recognize Carranza’s leadership, since it seemed to them that he was interested only in the political part of the revolution, rather than its social and economic causes. The partisans of Villa and Carranza thereupon decided to call a convention met briefly in México City, and later at Aguascalientes, a neutral city, in October 1914, but Villa, distrustful of Carranza, then disowned his authority and marched on México City (O’Malley, 82-86).
Carranza was obliged to leave the capital for Veracruz; nevertheless, this port city was a more favorable location, since it was beyond reach of his enemies, and the customs duties provided funds. In Veracruz, Carranza began to organize the revolutionary government, and initiated the agrarian reform with the law of January 6, 1915. Meanwhile, his generals were fighting the partisans of Villa and Zapata. These groups attempted to establish a national government in the capital, and discussed social and agrarian reform at sessions of the Supreme Revolutionary Convention. They were driven from México City in January 1915, however, and Alvaro Obregon decisively defeated Villa in the Battle of Celaya in March, forcing him to retreat to the north. The Supreme Revolutionary Convention, subjected to the hazards of war, finally took refuge in Morelos, where it was dissolved when Carranza’s troops marched in. Zapata continued his resistance until he was killed in 1919 (Macewan, 11-13).
The United States recognized the government of Carranza in October 1915. Frustrated in his ambitions, and unable to obtain arms from the United States on account of this recognition, Villa had a group of United States citizens shot in January 1916 and on March 9 attacked the town of Columbus, New México. The United States then sent General John Pershing on a punitive expedition. Carranza ordered the defense of Mexican territory, thus creating a very difficult situation. Nor would he enter into any agreement as long as United States troops remained in México. When, in February 1917, the troops finally left the country, the two governments had not reached an agreement, and Pershing’s troops had not been able to capture Villa.
In order to restore constitutional methods in México, Carranza called elections in September 1916, for a constituent congress, thus fulfilling promises made in the Plan of Guadalupe and providing for the incorporation of revolutionary legislation in the Constitution of 1857 (Meyers, 115-124). This congress met in the city of Queretaro from December 1, 1916 to January 31, 1917, and formulated a new constitution, which was promulgated on February 5, 1917. Once the triumph of the Constitutionalist forces had been consolidated, Carranza called special elections for president, representatives (diputados), and senators; being himself elected president of the republic.
The Constitution of 1917 established a representative democratic, federal republic. Some of its articles represent very advanced social tendencies, as well as the outlines for a national utilization of the national wealth. Articles 5, 27, 123, and 130 are especially important because of the reforms they envisaged and because of their consequences in national and international politics (Mccard, 25-29).
Article 5 established the principle that no one may be forced to render personal services without just compensation and without his full consent. Article 130 undertakes the difficult problem of relations between the state and the church, and grants the federal authorities the right to oversee religious worship and the relations between the church and the people. Article 27 is the basis of the agrarian reform and of regulations for the exploitation of the subsoil. Article 123 refers to labor and social planning, and establishes the basis for labor contracts (Williams, 48-52).
One of Carranza’s measures was his decree of February 19, 1918, declaring Mexican petroleum to be an inalienable national resource and beginning a long struggle to bring petroleum under Mexican control.
B. Post-Revolutionary Governments
Carranza attempted to impose Ignacio Bonillas as his successor in the elections of 1920, but Alvaro Obregon, a leader of Carranza’s partisans, used the old procedure of seizing power by armed force. He rose with the Plan of Agua Prieta (April 23, 1920) in defense of popular suffrage, and was joined by others of the military, notably generals Plutarco Elias Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta. Carranza, fleeing from the capital, was murdered at Tlaxcalantongo, Puebla, May 21, 1920. De la Huerta then became provisional president, and the remnants of other anti-Carranza forces abandoned the struggle (Rienner, 34-42). On July 27, 1920, Villa, who had maintained a futile opposition in the north, surrendered of Zapata who had remained in arms in Morelos also came to terms. Obregon was elected president on September 5, and took office on December 1, 1920.
Obregon. Prosperity increased under Obregon, and labor unions flourished, particularly the Confederacion Regional de Obreros Mexicanos, which had been organized in 1918. Obregon’s administration also marks the beginning of modern Mexican education, in the hands of Jose Vasconcelos, secretary of public education from 1921 to 1924. Elementary education was increased, and literacy campaigns and school-building programs were undertaken. During 1923, Obregon antagonized the clergy when he expelled the apostolic delegate for transgressing the laws. Catholics openly objected to this measure, but the real conflict was delayed until the presidency at the end of his term in 1924, but not without having overcome a revolt by de la Huerta in 1923-1924 (Graybill, 101-110).
Calles. Under the new administration prosperity continued, and the labor movement attracted increasing members of workers. The fiscal system was put on a sound basis in 1925, when nonproductive taxes were abolished and government income was increased but the levy of an income tax. The Banco de México was also founded in that year. Due to programs of material improvement, dating from Calle’s administration and thereafter, means of transportation and communication have brought towns and villages which had been isolated for centuries into contact with the rest of the country; and schools, public buildings, and hospitals have changed the colonial or Porfirian appearance of many cities (Graybill, 101-110).
In 1925-1926, the Congress passed laws enforcing the provisions of the Constitution of 1917 in regard to foreign-owned land and Mexican mineral resources. This led to a diplomatic conflict with the United States, which alleged that settled in 1927, but the Mexican government did not retreat from its stand on any of the basic questions.
In February 1927, the church publicly repudiated the Constitution of 1917. Calles faced the ensuing conflict by putting the anticlerical measures of 1917 into effect. Ecclesiastical property was nationalized and foreign priests and the archbishop were expelled, together with other prelates (Kuecker, 46-51). In October the so-called Cristeros rose in arms to fight for Cristo Rey (Christ the King). The revolt was centered in Jalisco and Guanajuato; there, and in other states there were bloody persecutions and reprisals.
Portes Gil, Ortiz Rubio, and Rodriguez. Relations between the government and the church became more conciliatory in 1929. In March of that year Calles founded the party successively called Partido National Revolucionario, Partido de la Revolucion Mexicana, and Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Mexico’s dominant political party. To which all presidents after Portes Gil belonged. Its first nominee, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, defeated Jose Vasconcelos in special elections held in 1929.
After the new president had taken office, México entered the worst of the world depression. The economic situation and a conflict within his administration, in which he was opposed by Calles, led to the president’s resignation on September 3, 1932 (Kuecker, 46-51). General Abelardo Rodriquez was elected by Congress to fill out the remainder of the term.
Cardenas. In 1934, Lazaro Cardenas was elected to a six-year term, in accordance with a constitutional reform of April 29, 1933. Social legislation, agrarian reform, and economic development received a new impetus from Cardenas, who represented the more liberal wing of the official party. The president came into conflict with Calles in 1935, and in the next year Calles was deported.
An important pillar of the Cardenas regime was the Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos, a new labor organization founded in 1936 in opposition to the older Confederacion Regional Obrera Mexicana and led by Vicente L. Toledano (Williams, 48-52). The circle of the official party was widened in 1938 to include workers and peasants, in order to give them a share in the political and economic direction of the country.
In 1936, when Cardenas decided to reform Article 3 of the constitution, dealing with education, the religious situation again became critical; but relations between church and state thereafter were improved, due less to changes in legislation than to a conciliatory attitude ion the part of the government. Agrarian reform was advanced by distribution of lands—a process that had been somewhat in abeyance—and by the establishment of institutions through which farmers could secure credit. In 1938 the government completed its long-standing campaign to bring Mexican petroleum resources under national control by expropriating foreign-owned oil companies (Sherman, 56-61).
III. Conclusion
As a conclusion, by 1940 President Cardenas had come to the conclusion that México needed time to consolidate the radical reforms of his administration. Accordingly, he chose as a successor a man of conservative views, General Manuel Avila Camacho. Avila Camacho stood for moderation toward the Church, he favored individual landholding, and he installed a relatively conservative labor leader, Fidel Velasquez, as head of the labor movement.
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